Tax Foundation

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One in three cellphone users now carries a smartphone, allowing us to connect with our family and friends — as well as our work — anywhere and at any time. Outside of staying in contact with friends, and parents being able to check in on their children, mobile broadband has spurred job creation and entrepreneurship across Florida. But the smartphone boom faces a grave threat from out-of-control cellphone taxes that are threatening to price millions out of data services. Wireless subscribers in 47 states pay taxes, fees and government-mandated charges that exceed the general retail sale tax rate, according to a new report by the trade publication State Tax Notes.

Imagine a teenager who gets caught dipping into the family cookie-jar fund to support his video game habit. He throws himself on his parents' mercy. "I know I must stop doing this, and I will," he says. "But I need a raise in my allowance to make up for the loss to my cash flow." Outrageous, wouldn't you say? Even in this pampered age, the youngster has crossed the bounds of effrontery. Well, in the debate over reform of the U.S. income tax system, some very similar claims have been made lately, with hardly a peep of protest.

Hanging, it is said, focuses the mind. So does that annual lynching known as tax time. So let`s focus for a moment not just on what we all know -- how painful that exercise has become -- but on the extent to which wacky government tax policy in recent years has itself contributed mightily to the nation`s economic woes. It`s the kind of insight we won`t, alas, be getting from our noble legislators themselves. For example, from one coast to the other, commercial real estate has been a disaster area of late.

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the street," or so the saying goes. Once people cross the street, of course, they generally find brown patches and crab grass. The "greener grass" syndrome affects many Floridians when it comes to property taxation. "I can't afford to live here any longer," angry property owners declare, as they threaten to pack their bags and leave the Sunshine State for tax Utopia, which presumably lies somewhere on the other side of the Suwanee River.

To understand why finding a national trend in this year's Senate races is like discerning a narrative in a Jackson Pollock painting, start here. Once a hotbed of cool, earnest Scandinavian welfare state liberalism, Minnesota -- which has not voted Republican in a presidential race since 1972, when it gave Richard Nixon his narrowest percentage margin over George McGovern -- has a former professional wrestler (Jesse Ventura) as governor, a senator (Democrat Paul Wellstone) who may be the Senate's most liberal member, and another senator (Republican Rod Grams, now seeking a second term)

Expecting wisdom from politicians is like expecting rationality from George Steinbrenner, but Washington`s haywire reactions to the Wall Street panic make even George look comparatively sensible. Steinbrenner, after all, has only one predictably wacky response to crises. He rehires Billy Martin. Washington, in contrast, seems determined to repeat all three of the major mistakes that turned the Crash of 1929 into the Great Depression. Mistake No. 1 is higher taxes. Egged on by much of the capital`s press corps, and by some woolly heads on Wall Street itself, our noble legislators seem to be buying the notion that what the world needs now is an even bigger bite by the IRS. The myth is that our economic problems trace to Ronald Reagan`s insane desire to reduce the government`s share of our paychecks.

The recent indictment of former Tyco International Ltd. chairman L. Dennis Kozlowski on charges of evading more than $1 million in sales taxes is throwing light on a shadowy subject: Americans who try to gain an edge -- legally or illegally -- on the tax collector. Some wealthy folks sail to international waters to buy yachts tax-free. Many waiters, waitresses, beauticians and parking valets don't report all of their tip income, accountants say. Some small-business owners fail to ring up cash sales, playing poor for tax purposes, while some philanthropists overstate the value of charitable contributions in order to pad itemized deductions.

Bill Clinton and I have a few things in common. He is making a lot of money these days mouthing off, and so am I. He came from rather humble beginnings, and I was raised in a working-class environment as well. We are both in the top income bracket, but here is where we diverge. Clinton loves paying taxes. I don't. Speaking before the Rainbow/Push coalition, Clinton criticized the Bush tax cut: "We are going to put half a million [children] out on the street so I can get my $80,000 tax cut. I must be the only person in America that every time I pay the maximum tax rates, every time I sign that tax form, I smile.

The Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the 50 states guarantee Americans many freedoms. Unfortunately, freedom from excessive taxation is not among them. To illustrate that point, think back to New Year`s Eve when you celebrated the coming of 1987. Imagine that when the clock struck midnight, all the money you earned from that moment forward was earmarked for taxes of all types. According to the Tax Foundation, a respected Washington tax research organization, you will still be paying taxes until May 3. Not until May 4, which the foundation calls Tax Freedom Day, will you be able to start keeping the money you earn.

It`s time for America to ask the big one: What exactly is the middle class, and why do most of us think we`re in it, or do we? Recently, the Associated Press reported that 90 percent of the people surveyed in a recent poll felt they were neither upper nor lower but solidly middle. Extrapolated out to include the entire population of the U.S. as these surveys are meant to do, the numbers would seem to indicate that only 10 percent of us think we`re at the top or the bottom. That`s quite a middle, whatever that means, and apparently nobody knows.